Vertrauen und chinesisches Wirtschaftshandeln in Singapur: Zur kulturellen und sozialstrukturellen Bedingtheit von Vertrauensbildung und Kooperation in chinesischen Geschäftsbeziehungen

Based on in-depth interviews with Chinese merchant exporters in Singapore the article explores why personal forms of trust (the Chinese translation is xinyong) are key elements in the complex web of business and associated social relationships. Chinese conceptions of oral contracts based on trust and cooperation reflect the experience of early Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, an environment characterized by uncertainty, and the risky nature of international trade. They mirror the importance of particularistic ties, shared interpersonal norms such as face or shame as well as the non-exclusive nature of business cooperation. International business trust and the strength of trust in verbal agreements depend on non-verbal information transmitted during initial faceto-face interactions, the length of a commercial relationship, the reliability and reputation of trading partners, the frequency of personal interactions, mutual interests and dependencies, the quality of past transactions, payment behaviour and the control of sanctions to threaten someone for non-performance. It is argued that the embeddedness in trading networks provides strong sanctions to force the other to behave predictably and that it helps to maintain trust. But this does not imply a total reliance on trusted kinship networks as often claimed in the literature.